Emoji and emoticons

list of emoticons are a spin on common emoticons, which you can use to enhance your Slack messages.

Adding emoji to your Slack messages

There are two ways you can use emoji in your messages:

Type the emoji code

Select from the emoji menu

Type the emoji code

Slack uses the standard emoji codes found at Emoji Cheat Sheet. You can quickly add emoji to your messages by typing in the code.
If you’re not sure of the emoji code, just type : followed by the first few letters, and an autocomplete menu will appear. Click the emoji you want to use, or on desktop, press Tab to cycle through the list.

Select from the emoji menu

Desktop

iOS

Android

Windows Phone

Click the light gray smiley face in the message box to open the emoji menu.

Tab through the icons at the top to browse groups of emoji, or start typing a word to search the emoji codes.

Click your chosen emoji. It’ll be added to your message.

Tip: You can add your own easy-to-remember codes for emoji in Slack. Simply:

Go to the Customize page.

Select Set alias for an existing emoji.

Choose an emoji from the drop-down menu.

Under Choose a name, enter the new code you’d like to use.

Select Save New Emoji and you’re done!

Choosing your default skin tone

On desktop, you can set your emoji skin tone preference by clicking the ✋ hand icon in the bottom right corner of the emoji menu. Pick a default skin tone, or switch it up on the fly.

Jumbomoji

By default, if your message or comment contains only emoji, they’ll appear larger on both mobile and desktop. In the case of desktop, this is provided you’re using the Clean message theme.

You can turn off jumbomoji in your Preferences:

Click your team name to open the Team Menu.

Choose Preferences.

Select the Messages & Media tab.

Under Emoji Style, uncheck the box next to Show JUMBOMOJI.

Note: Slack won’t display jumbomoji if your message has more than 23 emoji in a row.

Using Emoticons

Slack will automatically change common emoticons such as 🙂 to an equivalent emoji:

If you prefer to simply use emoticons, you can turn this feature off in your desktop Preferences:

Click your team name to open the Team Menu.

Choose Preferences.

Select the Messages & Media tab.

Under Convert Emoticons, uncheck the box next to Convert my typed emoticons to emoji so 😀 becomes 😄